Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is the place to be if you like to write and share Japanese poetry forms like haiku and tanka. It’s a warmhearted family of haiku poets created by Chèvrefeuille, a Dutch haiku poet. Japanese poetry is the poetry of nature and it gives an impression of a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. ++ ALL WORKS PUBLISHED ARE COPYRIGHTED AND THE RIGHTS BELONG TO THE AUTHORS ++ !!! Anonymous comments will be seen as SPAM !!!

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Carpe Diem #831 Ohmato Taikai (Festival of the Great Target)

!! My apologies for being this late with publishing !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy ... after such a long time of being patient I can start with our third anniversary month. Today I have a wonderful festival for you ... this festival is called: Ohmato Taikai, Festival of the Great Target, and (as you will understand) it's a festival especially for archery (Kyudo) and it takes place around January 10th, say around the Japanese (classical) New Year.

Let me tell you a little bit more about this Festival:

“Ohmato Taikai”, our prompt for today is a 400
year old archery competition held at the Sanjūsangen-dō Temple in January. This
temple in Kyoto has always attracted Kyudo (Japanese archery) enthusiasts. The
main hall building is the longest wooden building in Japan — it is 120 meters
long.

The
competition, called Tōshiya (lit. passing arrow)started in 1606 when a Samurai gave a
demonstration of his Kyudo prowess — shooting 100 arrows in rapid succession
the entire length of the temple. He hit the target 51 times.

Since this,
an annual Kyudo contest has been held at the Sanjūsangen-dō Temple with various
archery marathons events:The Hyakui

Most target hits with 100 arrows.The Seni

Most target
hits with 1000 arrows. In 1827, an 11 year old named Kokura Gishichi
successfully hit the target 995 times firing from half the distance of the
hall.The Hiyakazu

Boys who
had not yet celebrated their Genpuku, or coming-of-age ceremony, could compete
in this event. Archers would shoot as many arrows as possible for a 12 hour
period during the day. In 1774, Masaaki Noro, a 13 year old from Kishū, shot
11,715 arrows with almost all of them hitting the target. That’s an average of
16 arrows a minute for 12 hours with no break.

The number
of target hits in 24 hours. In 1686, Wasa Daihachiro from Kishū successfully
shot 8,133 out of 13,053 arrows averaging 544 arrows an hour, or 9 arrows a
minute, and became the record holder.

The Tōshiya
competition ceased being held in 1861, after 255 years. Since then, a contest
based on it, the Ohmato Taikai, or Festival of the Great Target, still
continues today, drawing roughly 2,000 participants from throughout Japan. The
sight of all these 20 years old woman participants in colorful kimono with
hakama is awesome!Archers shoot arrows
into targets approximately 50 – 100 centimeters in diameter and 60 meters away.
The contestants are all 20 years old and there are also demonstrations by older,
more experienced archers.

The archers
shoot in groups of six. There are only 4 targets. Each archer has two arrows
and two minutes. Archers that hit the target with both arrows go on to the next
round.(Beneath you can find a video about this festival).

I hope you did like this episode of our Haiku Kai and I hope it will inspire you to write/compose an all new haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 4th at noon (CET). I will (try to) post our next episode, our first CD Special of this festive month, later on.

Basho (1644-1694) once said:

[...] “When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.” [...]

CARPE DIEM's HAIKU FAMILY

Follow by Email

BASHO REVISITED

try it our QR-code

SOON TO COME

CARPE DIEM

TANKA SPLENDOR

RENGA WITH JANE REICHHOLD (2)

Cliffs

NOW AVAILABLE

The Divine Tarot

CARPE DIEM ON FACEBOOK

My Visitors

Tribute To Jane Reichhold, a new CDHK Tumblr

Feel free to visit

IMPROMPTU VERSE

Sometimes a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form comes in mind just in one eye-blink. Those poems I call Impromptu-verses. Here I will publish these Impromptu-verses. Today's Impromptu verse: (11)

fragile beautyclimbing against the fencemoonflower straightenswith her snow white blossomto the Summer moon

VISIT ALSO

I am a member of

VISIT MY HOME WEBLOG

CARPE DIEM ON

PINTEREST

WORDPRESS WEBLOG

Chèvrefeuille's Haiku

NOW ONLINE

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Academy

CARPE DIEM HAIKU KAI SPECIAL

special features

Publishing Policy

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Carpe Diem is the place to be if you like to write and share haiku (or another Japanese poetry form like e.g. tanka). It's a family of haiku loving poets.Japanese poetry is known as the impression of a short moment, say a heartbeat or an eye-blink, in which nature plays an important role.It's free to participate in Carpe Diem. By participating in Carpe Diem, you agree with the use of your work in the exclusive e-book series of Carpe Diem.Of course your work will be credited as Carpe Diem always does. However all the texts and works at Carpe Diem are copyrighted and the rights belong to the authors.

March 20th 2016

Chèvrefeuille, your host

PS. Of course it is possible that you don't want to have your work published in our exclusive series of CDHK e-books. Please let me know that by sending an e-mail to our e-mail address carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com